Grand Canyon, Yosemite and other US national parks could see huge hike in visitor fees

The National Park Service is considering a steep increase in entrance fees at 17 parks
Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images
Tom Powell25 October 2017

National parks across the US including the Grand Canyon and Yosemite could hike up fees for visitors in a bid to cover maintenance costs.

The National Park Service is considering a steep increase in entrance fees at 17 of its most popular parks, to address a backlog of maintenance and infrastructure projects.

Visitors to the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Zion and other national parks would be charged $70 (£53) per vehicle, up from the fee of $30 (£23) for a weekly pass. At others, the hike is nearly triple.

A 30-day public comment period opened Tuesday. The Park Service says it expects to raise $70 million a year with the proposal at a time when national parks repeatedly have been breaking visitation records and putting a strain on park resources. Nearly 6 million people visited the Grand Canyon last year.

"We need to have a vision to look at the future of our parks and take action in order to ensure that our grandkids' grandkids will have the same if not better experience than we have today," Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a statement.

Visitors to the Grand Canyon could be charged double
PA Archive/PA Images

Kevin Dahl, Arizona senior programme manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, said maintenance costs should fall to Congress, not visitors.

"We've supported increases at the parks, they are a huge value for the price of entrance," he said. "But we want to look closely at this and we want local communities to look closely at this to see if it would impact visitation because we don't want to price people out of the parks."

Latino Outdoors founder Jose Gonzalez said the need for revenue and to control the crowds at the busiest parks is understandable but he questioned the potential impact.

"If there isn't always a question or consideration of equitable access to a lot of communities, it's only going to increase the disparity in terms of who is able to access our national parks and public lands," he said.

Not all Park Service sites charge entrance fees. The 118 that do keep 80 per cent of revenue for things like fixing restrooms, signs, trails, exhibits and campgrounds and send 20 per cent into a pot to help other free park sites.

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